03 March 2008

Ngage First Access
Review, part 1. The ngage Client.

My good friends from the Nokia Nseries WOMworld team was kind enough to send me a nokia n81 device with the ngage first access application pre-installed onto it, along with some of the top games which are currently available for it. The ngage first access is the next generation of mobile gaming from nokia, which offers a whole new world to mobile gaming.

And i will be sharing my experiance ive had with the platform the past week or so i have been using it.

This first episode i will be talking mainly about the actual ngage application itself, and a little history behind the ngage. I will cover more about the games in later articles to come.

For those who are new to the scene, the original ngage was actually a device which was announced back in Q4 2003 which we now refer to as the ngage classic. But unfortuantly, the device did not do so well as it was expected, and a few months later nokia announced a smaller gaming device called the N-gage QD, which fixed a few major flaws which the classic had, but again, like the original classic ngage device, the QD never did very well either up against the big handheld gaming consoles that was around at the time (the gameboy advanced)

But now nokia are coming back for round 2, and the gloves are off this time. With huge advances in mobile technology, has now evoled our mobile lifestyles to something we would never of dreamed possible back in the days of the ngage. Much faster processers, More RAM and even on board dedicated mobile 3D accelerated graphic chips inside some nokia devices.

Upon launching the new ngage application for the very first time was very exciting for me, i know im not alone when i say ive been waiting a very long time for this, there has been much talk and buzz all over the net about this next generation mobile gaming platform from nokia for a very long time, and now it is finally here. This first access release of the ngage platform is only available for nokia n81 and nokia n81 8gb device owners at this early stage, as it is a early public beta being controled with availability and support for just n81 owners to get there feedback on how it can be improved and any possible bugs. And as with all beta software's comes many bugs, the ngage first access is no exception as i have experianced some of these bugs myself first hand which i will come to talk about later in the article. First i like to talk about the good things and the features of the new platform.

The User Interface of the new ngage application is very very nice i thought. Really great theme and feel to it, it uses its very own designed UI menu within the options, which i am just a huge fan of all applications that dont use the boring defualt s60 options menu's.

Very simple to navigate around the client and you know where you are all the time. Upon first launching the ngage application you are directly in the Home page, the layout is done on a tab interface, you have the tabs at the top with a visual image for each tab and also the name of the tab/page you are on in text at the very top center next to the ngage logo.

The first tab is the home, which is displayed by the cool looking home image icon which also animates when moved to, all the tab icons animate which is great as it really points out to the user exactly what part of the application you are currently viewing.

Ngage Client Home Screen

From the home screen you can start the game you last played on, you can track you progress which shows your online gamers avatar and your points. The next option shows you the featured game and last on the home page shows if you have any messages from other players, friend request also show in your message inbox with option to accept friend request, or deny it.

Ngage Client Home Screen

Also on the Home page, like all the tabs/pages on the ngage client, you are able to press the left soft key (options) which will bring up a host of different options for the page you are currently viewing (differnt set of options for each differnt page). The Options here on the home page are different regarding to what you have highlighted, for example, the left screenhot above is highlighting the 'Track My Progress' selection on the home page, and the options on this selection gives you access to 'View My Points', or 'View My Profile' now if i was on the 'Start Game' selection (which is the 1st selection on the home page that displays the game which you last played) the options menu would be different to options menu for 'Track My Progress' as seen on the right screenshot, i am highlighting the 'Featured Game' selection, which the options menu does not give me options to view profile or points like it does on the 'Track My Progress' selection.

All tabs/pages have there own set of options, everyone however offers the option of signing into the ngage arena, and of course the help and exit option.

The next tab is the games tab, which is illustrated by the dpad icon which again is also animated upon selecting this page. Toggle between tabs by moving left or right on the device using your dpad.

Ngage Client Games Screen

On this page shows all the games installed installed on the device, and tells you if they are trial version. You will see a pink Trial text on the right hand side of the game, where the full version games show a battery like meter which displays how much of the game you have played, as see in screenshots above, i have playing on blockbuster deluxe the most, as illustrated by the green line to the right of the installed game. Also, on this Games page at the very bottom your able to Get more games, upon clicking this will take you to the ngage showroom. More on showroom later.

Ngage Client Games Screen

Also from my games page you are able to press options (left soft key) which brings up a host of different options, (just like Home) from starting a game, to making changes in the ngage settings. Here you can also remove a game, which will delete the game completly from your device, and you can also view memory details, which will tell you what games are taking what memory space on what drive.

Ngage Client Games Screen

You can also View your profile and Rate Games from the options menu in the My Games Tab. To rate a game you just simply highlight the game you would like to rate, which will then take you to another page on which you can rate the game using stars and also write a small sentance on what you think about the game.

Ngage Client Games Screen

I gave block breaker deluxe 5 stars as it is a supurb game (more on the games in next article). Simply left and right on the dpad to add or remove stars to your rating. This rating is what people will see in the showroom to help them on what games they would like to try.

Ngage Client Downloading Game

Games can also be downloaded from the showroom within the client (more on page 2) or from the showroom on the web downloaded to your PC and transferd to your device and then installed onto the phones memory or the memory card or mass memory. Ngage games come with the file extension as .n-gage and normally you will download the limited trial version which only gives you a very very very short look at the game untill you must purchase it using your credit card. Game codes can be purchased directly and securely using the actuall ngage client itself.

Ngage Client Installing game

Once game is downloaded and installed, you will be able to play the trial version of the game and later purchase a code to unlock it to the full version. Games are very cheap with the most expensive being just £8. This is great value for money, and most are as little as just £4 to buy. All are very addictive games and really fun to play.

Continue reading on page 2